Click to agree to our updated Privacy Policy and Use of Cookies. Two of the women hid in a Chinese supermarket, and others hurried down the streets leading to the canal. One of them approached us, discreetly. A movie was being shot that day, in the Asian parts of the Belleville neighborhood; the woman even went as far as to apply for a role.
After all, the film was about a Chinese prostitute. Like her, a woman without papers. Like her, or rather, like them all. Looking back, months later, the woman shakes her head when thinking about her crazy idea, as she imagines her face on a giant screen all over the world, perhaps even back in her hometown in the Manchuria region. Then, people would have found out that she doesn't work as a secretary in Paris. The bill would make it illegal to pay for sex and toughens the penalties for clients.
On the other side of the window, high school girls are laughing in the rain, cheery and well-dressed. There are of them in the area, representing one-third of the Chinese prostitutes in Paris , all gathered in the neighborhood of Belleville.
Usually, their prices range between 20 and 60 euros. These days, some accept It's been a tough winter, and in the cafe the women argue over who will pay for the espressos. In the late s, a series of governmental reforms were initiated there during which everything closed for months. In the sock factory where she was working, employees were advised to "take something, sell it on the sidewalk" because they weren't coming back.
Meanwhile, at the other end of China, a new economy was built through textiles, electronics and enlisting battalions of rural youth. One working class replaced another. But after the Chinese reforms she emigrated to the West. There was only one way of doing it: She paid 11, euros in cash for a fake temporary visa. After flight transfers in London and Frankfurt, she arrived in Paris.
